Farmers and horticulturists are working on ways to beat the drought and it looks like waste floodwater that ends up in the sea could be the life-saver.
Already some property owners have set up dams to capture water run-off to use it to help grow their crops and the idea is catching on.
The 3,000 vines on grape grower Julian Ball's property all benefit from a scheme that harvests water.
"It's water on tap, I'm especially pleased with how the water gets here," says Mr Ball.
Mr Ball's water comes from a 25 mega-litre dam, which was one of six set up in a scheme established more than 30 years ago.
The dams store surplus water from a nearby river, as well as run-off.
Mr Ball's neighbour, Sherwood Wines, is a much bigger operation that also relies on harvested water from the same scheme.
"It's extremely important for our operation at Waipara," says Sherwood Wines' Mark Jones. "Not only for irrigation, but also for the winery."
Dr Terry Heiler represents New Zealand's irrigators and believes passionately in water storage. However he says getting it from big rivers is tricky.
"You can never take those high flows, they're too big," Dr Heiler says. "You take the river to take the high flows, so with harvesting of the big rivers there's a limit. You can only take a wee slice of it because you can't build a canal big enough."
With smaller storage ponds already dotting the Canterbury countryside, the next challenge is to see if floodwater can be successfully harvested and stored off a big river like the Waimakariri.
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